Exhaust diffusion manifold for a vacuum cleaner or the like



March 31, 1970 F. L. GALIULO ETAL 3,503,558

EXHAUST DIFFUSION MANIFOLD FOR A VACUUM CLEANER OR THE LIKE Filed March 14, 1968 INVENTORS Fen/wr L Gala/Lo Gama-1' Mo rr, Jr.

W MMM/ A? THEIR ATTOR United States Patent 3,503,558 EXHAUST DIFFUSION MANIFOLD FOR A VACUUM CLEANER OR THE LIKE Frank L. Galiulo, Harrison, N.Y., and Garret Mott, Jr., Wilton, Conn., assignors to Electrolux Corporation, Old Greenwich, Conn., a corporation of Delaware Filed Mar. 14, 1968, Ser. No. 713,024 Int. Cl. Bb 1/26 U.S. Cl. 239499 4 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE An exhaust air outlet conducts air from the,interior of the vacuum cleaner body to the exterior of the body. The air is directed into an elongated exhaust diffusing manifold on an exterior surface of the body extending in the longitudinal direction of the cleaner body. The exhaust air enters the manifold at the large end of a substantially conical or tapered centrally located passage in the manifold defined by vanes of varying lengths. Each of the vanes is at a constantly changing angle from the base to the apex of the passage so that exhaust air entering ambient atmosphere is moving at a low velocity diffused over a large area.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Heretofore, exhaust air from a vacuum cleaner has been directed into the ambient atmosphere in a concentrated, relatively high velocity stream. It is known to deflect this stream of air upwardly from the cleaner, however the energy of the exhaust air is not substantially reduced and causes dust on other surfaces to be suspended in the exhaust air stream and blown about the room.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The exhaust air diffusing manifold for a vacuum cleaner according to this invention expands a concentrated incoming air stream, for decelerating the air stream, and sub-divides the lower velocity expanded air stream for dispersing it over a large area, whereby the energy of the concentrated exhaust stream has been materially reduced and distributed when it enters ambient atmosphere surrounding the cleaner.

An object of the invention therefore is to provide an improved air diffusing exhaust manifold for a vacuum cleaner and the like.

A more particular object of the invention is to provide an exhaust manifold for a vacuum cleaner and the like having an elongated expansion chamber or passage defined by a plurality of vanes of varying length and varying angle with the longitudinal axis of the passage.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a partial plan view of the interior of an exhaust air diffuser manifold for a vacuum cleaner according to the invention.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged cross-sectional elevation taken on line 22 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a partial end elevation in section taken on line 3 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a partial cross-sectional view taken on line 4-4 of FIG. 3.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT In the drawing FIG. 1 is a view of an exhaust diffusing manifold generally designated which is incorporated in the top trim of vacuum cleaner. The top trim is placed on the cleaner body with the air diffusing manifold shown in FIG. 1 engaging the cleaner body as shown in FIG. 2. Thus FIG. 1 is a plan view looking into the interior of "ice the diffuser manifold. In use the generally conical passage 11 defined by the series of vanes 12 is normally closed in the plane of drawing by the cleaner body as indicated in FIG. 2.

The high velocity air stream created by a conventional vacuum cleaner motor blower unit MB is directed through aperture A of the cleaner body into expansion chamber 11 through an entry designated 13. As shown in FIG. 2 the entry 13 is normally closed by a suitable cover member 14 which can be opened to allow insertion of a hose or other device into the entry 13 into aperture A for bypassing the diffusion manifold so that the hose or another device is in direct communication with aperture A. With the cover 14 closed, as seen in the drawing, air enters the expansion passage 11 at the large, base end 15 thereof (FIG. 2). That is, the base end 15 of the expansion chamber 11 has a large volume due to its greater depth (FIG. 2) and width (FIG. 1) than the remote downstream end of chamber 11. The volume of base end 15 is sufficient to allow the air to expand upon entering the expansion chamber and slow down so that the velocity of the air in the base end 15 of the expansion chamber is lower than the exit velocity of the air in the entry 13. It is noted that the size of the opening A and size of entry 13 is the same as the standard exhaust opening for a vacuum cleaner which is determined by the size of a vacuum cleaner hose and its associated connector (not shown). In addition to the expansion which takes place in base end 15, the exhaust air flow, as it travels longitudinally along the passage 11, continues to expand outwardly through the channels 16 between adjacent vanes 12 and escape into ambient atmosphere through the channel apertures 17 (FIG. 3). By the time the exhaust air reaches the apertures 17 its energy level is considerably lowered so that disturbance of ambient air is minimal.

By suitably dimensioning the inward extent of the vanes 12 (FIG. 1) i.e. proportionately varying the space between the inner ends of the vanes, and also varying the angle a each blade forms with a plane normal to the longitudinal axis of passage 11, the air flow through each of the channels 16 and associated aperture 17 is substantially equal. As seen in FIG. 1 the angle a between adjacent blades is varied by 3 degrees. That is, vanes 12a form an angle or with the plane normal to the longitudinal axis of passage 11 and the next adjacent pair of vanes 12b are set at an angle of a minus 3 degrees; the vanes are set at an angle at minus 6 and so on until the last vane is placed at an angle normal to the longitudinal axis of passage 11, or at an angle a minus the number of blades at one side of the passage 11 multiplied by 3. For the particular tank type vacuum cleaner shown the longest blades 12X are 3 from the normal and the variation per vane is 3 so that the vane 12a, the tenth vane in the series beginning with vane 12X is 33. For a differently configured vacuum cleaner for example a so-called canister type cleaner in which the longitudinal dimension of the expansion chamber is shorter than on a tank type cleaner equal air flow from a plurality of outlet apertures 17 can be determined experimentally by starting with all vanes 12 being of equal length as well as normal to the center line of the manifold and cutting off the inner ends of the vanes until the flow through each channel 16 is equal; the downstream vane terminations being located further from the center line or longitudinal axis of the expansion chamber 11 if the flow through a given channel 16 is greater than the next adjacent channel nearer the air inlet, and correlatively the downstream vane ter- Initiation is located nearer the center line of the expansion chamber 11 when the flow of a passage is too low. Alternatively the angle of attack of each vane 12, all of which are of equal length, may be varied until the air flow through each passage 16 is equal, the vanes being positioned to create a greater or sharper turn for the air from the chamber 11 into a channel 16 in regions of high manifold pressure and flow. However, the use of both a varying angle of attack and a varying blade length is preferred for optimum results in view of the number of variables encountered in practice.

As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 the slowly moving air leaving the aperture 17 of the channels 16 is deflected upwardly if desired by means of a curved guide or deflector 20. The height of the deflector 20, dimension b, FIG. 3, and the vertically measured dimension a, FIGS. 3 and 4, adjacent the openings 17 have a ratio preferably on the order of 1:2 or 1:3 for the particular application illustrated.

It will be apparent from the foregoing description of the presently preferred embodiment of an air diffusing manifold for a vacuum cleaner, that variations are within the skill of the art in adapting the invention to different vacuum cleaner body shapes.

What is claimed is:

1. An air diffusing manifold for a vacuum cleaner comprising an elongated passage in said manifold having an expansion chamber for receiving a concentrated stream of exhaust air from the interior of a vacuum cleaner body, a plurality of vanes transversely of said passage defining a plurality of channels, said channels communicating said passage with ambient atmosphere, said vanes intersect said chamber at a substantially continually varying angle with the longitudinal axis of said chamber.

2. An air diffusing manifold according to claim 1 wherein said expansion chamber is generally convergent in the direction of air flow and having the base of the convergent chamber communicating directly with said concentrated air stream, said expansion chamber being defined by said vanes each of which have a proportionately varying transverse dimension.

3. An air diffusing manifold according to claim 1 wherein said chamber becomes progressively shallow in the direction of air flow.

4. An air diffusing manifold according to claim 1 wherein said constantly varying angle is on the order of three degrees.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,990,123 6/1961 Hyde 239-499 3,409,232 11/1968 Cholin 239499 EVERETT W. KIRBY, Primary Examiner 

